3D printing escapades

For a while now at Absolute I’ve been practising my 3D design skills, having very little initial experience with the required program, It seemed overwhelming as to how such things could be made.

My excitement when I finally got a model 3D printed in sandstone though was palpable! Printed in full colour sandstone, this tiny little house (which is just larger than a business card) is a visual reminder of something I have physically created from nothing but a PDF document of a floor plan.

The house itself is very low detail, the polygon count (the 2D shapes used together to make the 3D ones) is extremely low, meaning that without the brick texture added in, it would be completely flat and grey.

All detail seen here is the work of a large image I made in Photoshop, which essentially acts as a giant sticker the machine reads to colour the sandstone block whilst cutting.

The fun didn’t stop there however, once our lead designer saw this go to print, we wanted to step it up a little bit more and try out another material on a different object, so we decided to try our logo!

After fumbling around in Photoshop’s confusing 3D interface, we extruded a flat PNG of our logo and made necessary amends so it could support its self, ultimately printing it in a flexible, yet durable white plastic.

Now these two little testers sit with the rest of our example wall, only to improve upon in the future once we tap into different materials for different needs. Materials such as ceramic, stainless steel and even precious metals such as platinum!